Monday, May 2, 2011

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has published a comprehensive analysis of energy storage applications and technology options that also assesses the potential benefits and markets for energy storage in the United States .

The analysis looks at 10 energy storage applications that EPRI considers would serve the bulk of the energy storage market and includes applications to support wholesale energy services and renewable integration. The research also identified and modeled 21 benefits of energy storage, including power quality, power reliability, retail time-of-use energy charges, and retail demand charges, among others. The analysis compared the present value of benefits with the estimated costs for energy storage systems installed in various regions across the U.S.

“There are a wide range of potential benefits for energy storage applications and when aggregated, these benefits can justify the costs of installing storage in many places,” said Mark McGranaghan, vice president of Power Delivery and Utilization at EPRI. “Storage systems dedicated to a single application can be valuable, but the true value of storage appears when the same system serves multiple applications.”

Study results indicate that the total U.S. energy storage market could be as large as 14 gigawatts of capacity if energy storage systems could be installed for about $700–$750/kW-h and the energy storage owners and operators could monetize the estimated benefits.

The study provides updated capital cost and performance information for storage systems available within the next one to three years, along with longer-term trends and emerging systems. It outlines a framework and methodology that electric utilities and industry stakeholders may use as one approach to estimating the value of energy storage systems in near-term applications.

The paper, “Electricity Energy Storage Technology Options - A White Paper Primer on Applications, Costs and Benefits,” is available for download from the EPRI web site. Click here to download this paper http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?Abstract_id=000000000001020676

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